From poisonyoulove:

01. Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper at their LJ.
02. Explain in five sentences why you're using that wallpaper!
03. Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on!

( It's under the cut. )

And now, to change the subject abruptly, I came across a link to this list of sci-fi movie conventions that need to die from SamuraiFrog's blog, and I thought it was worth commenting on. So here are my thoughts on each item:

6. I think this one is just a throwback to the cheap special effects of early Star Trek.

5. I don't mind this one so much, but it did always seem to me that Star Trek characters spent an awful lot of time talking about what, to them, would have been ancient history.

4. I think the part about logical holes is what particularly gets to me. And it's not just sci-fi that does this. I mean, look at how often magical devices in fantasy aren't used when it would make sense. (Magic Belt, anyone?) I guess I like consistency in what things can do. For the same reason, magic that grants wishes can be an irritating trope in many situations.

3. I have to agree whole-heartedly with this. I can recall even noticing as a kid how weird it was that entire planets would have one culture and a single ruler (if not a single ruler for an entire galaxy), when such obviously wasn't the case on our own planet. Mind you, I still used the trope in some of my own stories. I was in elementary school at the time, after all. But really, why bother using planets and aliens when their entire civilizations are less diverse than the local country club? And I know I've seen several people point out how Star Wars is full of desert planets, ice planets, swamp planets, and the like. They're all fit for human habitation, yet consist of only one environment. Does every part of each planet somehow receive the exact same amount of sunlight? Or ARE there other environments on these planets that we just never see?

2. This just makes me think of the part in the Futurama episode "The Birdbot of Ice-catraz" where Bender just flies the ship out from the middle of Old Man Waterfall's peace ring.

1. A society with advanced military technology relying on infantry? Well, that's basically what we had in Vietnam, wasn't it?


And finally, another quiz result:

Your Brain is 60% Female, 40% Male

Your brain is a healthy mix of male and female You are both sensitive and savvy Rational and reasonable, you tend to keep level headed But you also tend to wear your heart on your sleeve

So, I finished Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series yesterday. Yeah, that was pretty quick, wasn't it? But they were definitely good books, full of adventure, humor, and all that good stuff. And Riordan definitely did his research on Greek mythology, working a lot of characters and references into a modern setting. I think part of its success is that, while it did modernize things, I don't think it tried to be overly hip about it. It just showed a fairly logical progression as to how the Greek gods and monsters might have adjusted to the present-day United States. Ares is a biker and Apollo's chariot can change into a sports car, but there's no suggestion that they were ALWAYS like that. The plot was also interesting, coming across as somewhat reminiscent of Harry Potter (for instance, there's a hidden training place for kids with special powers, and a major villain who's been neutralized but gains in power throughout the series), but it's not like most of the themes in the Potter series were original with Rowling.

Another cool collection I've gotten recently and would like to say a bit about is I Wanna Go Backwards, the box set containing Robyn Hitchcock's first three solo albums, plus a lot of bonus material. Robyn was always someone I thought I should check out, based largely on his collaborations with Scott McCaughey. The first album of his that I picked up was Respect, which wasn't that great, although it had some tracks I quite liked. (I guess that's why I could buy it for only $5.) But I'm definitely enjoying these earlier albums. Some of my early favorites include "The Man Who Invented Himself," "Do Policemen Sing?", "Uncorrected Personality Traits" (which I was actually already familiar with, through a live version that I got from eMusic), "Ye Sleeping Knights of Jesus," and "Cynthia Mask."

Finally, here's a quiz that I learned about from doktor_x, and ended up getting the same result he did.

( Read more... )

Finally, happy birthday to countblastula, happy one-week-belated birthday to colbyucb, and happy one-day-early birthday to kristenjarrod!

I went out with bethje and Dorothea last night. First, we went bowling, and I didn't do very well. I never do very well, but I think I scored somewhere in the nineties last time, and this time I never even broke seventy. Oh, well. After that, we had dinner at the Olive Garden, and then went out to Atlantic City. My two companions did some gambling on the roulette machines, but I just spent that time reading Battle of the Labyrinth. Using the machines is kind of fun, but I'm not big on gambling because I always think about how I could buy stuff with the money I put into the one-armed bandits (which are often more like buttoned bandits these days). Yeah, I know there's a chance of winning, but even people who win usually seem to put in more than they get out in the long run.

I've been having some bizarre dreams in the past few nights. I had meant to write about the ones I had the night before last, but now I can't remember it. I should probably start writing them down as soon as I wake up, if they're interesting enough. Last night, I had some dreams that were kind of related. The first one I can recall had Beth (or someone playing the role of my wife for the dream, anyway) and me picking up girls at some kind of amusement park and planning to take them back to our hotel room, but they left before we could get back there. I guess we don't have a future as pimps. {g} Later, it somehow changed to a story about some guy arriving at what might have been the same hotel after an adventure, accompanied by a woman he'd just recently met. The two of them had sex, which I knew because the owners of the hotel had monitored their behavior for the entire night. I think there was supposed to be some kind of conspiracy behind the whole thing, but my dreams often hint at grander things than I actually see in them. The story somehow became a book, which was sort of like Slaughterhouse-Five in that the main character mentally jumped around in time. I think there was a revelation that he became involved in time travel whenever he needed to, but he didn't realize this at first. Really, it seemed like it could have been a good story if it weren't for the fact that the dream itself provided so few details. I also remember something about being trapped in a military recruiting station, jumping through a closed window to escape, and waking up right then.

Finally, while I'm not looking for dates, I tend to find the results of these quizzes interesting. I'm not sure what was up with some of the questions, though. Even though I'm sure some people ARE still opposed to mixed-race couples, would they actually admit it in this day and age?

( Read more... )

Probably bethje, although I know I added every LJ person I remembered from the TMBG Off-Topic List pretty much immediately. And yes, they're all still there. I'll generally only remove someone if they either delete their journal or remove me first.

So, it's the fifteenth of May (in the Jungle of Nool?), which means it's the one hundred fifty-third birthday of the late Lyman Frank Baum, my favorite author and possessor of one of my favorite mustaches.



In honor of Baum's birthday, check out this post by Jared Davis. The podcast you can download from there includes me, reading a chapter from The Emerald City of Oz. I haven't listened to the whole podcast yet, but I'll admit that I probably read a little too fast. From what I can remember, that's been the case since kindergarten. I also can't do voices, but I at least tried to use appropriate tones. You can let me know whether you think I succeeded.

( And finally, some quiz results. )

Yeah, I've covered the topic of fundamentalist busybodies who oppose gay marriage before, and everyone has probably seen this video anyway, but I found it too crazy NOT to repost here. This group calls itself the National Organization for Marriage, although they make it clear they only like one sort of marriage, which makes it kind of a silly name. It would be like if I founded the National Association for Pizza, but I proposed destroying every kind of pizza except pepperoni.



And here's some more fun with NOM.

I personally like this one: “Who gets harmed? The people of this state who lose our right to define marriage as the union of husband and wife, that’s who. That is just not right.”

Wait, so we have a RIGHT to define words however we want to? Humpty Dumpty would be thrilled! I also have to admit being somewhat puzzled by the idea of someone responding to the accusation of being a bigot by saying, "I think that’s pretty offensive, don’t you?" Um, isn't calling someone a bigot SUPPOSED to be offensive?

You know, I'm married to someone of the opposite sex, but we don't have any kids and don't plan to do so. So does that mean our marriage is just as invalid as a homosexual one by NOM standards? I can live with that. Also, wouldn't it be logical for these people to support polygamy? After all, if one mom and one dad is better than two parents of the same gender, wouldn't multiple moms and dads be even better? And even if you do think a kid is better off being raised by people of both genders, why do they have to be a married couple? bethje was raised primarily by her mom and her uncle. What would NOM think of that?

And, while this has nothing to do with the rest of this post, I still thought it was kind of fun.



Yeah, I couldn't remember the symbol for antimony. In fact, I'm not even sure I can recall what antimony is. Sounds kind of like a Shakespearean character. {g}

If there's one model of good behavior that comes up more often than most in the Bible, it's that you should provide for the poor. This is in both the Old and New Testaments, and is certainly much more prominent than the stuff about not being gay. (Are you listening, Republican Party?) But while this is certainly a good idea, I have to wonder why an omnipotent being would have to tell this to people, instead of just ending poverty Himself. Yeah, I know this is just a variation on the "Why would a good God allow so much suffering?" question that's been discussed for millennia, but it's been on my mind recently. If you're supposed to give all you can to the less fortunate, and God is technically able to contribute infinite amounts of money, then isn't He not following His own rules? And if the poor are simply around as part of some complex test on God's part, isn't it rather cruel to have a large number of people suffer through their entire lives simply to serve as part of an example?

( And on a totally different note... )

Hey, it's our anniversary! Well, sort of. Since bethje and I got married on the twenty-ninth of February, I guess we won't technically have an anniversary until 2012. But it HAS been a year, and we were considering eating dinner at the same place we had our small reception in order to commemorate that. The only problem is that we found out they're cafeteria-style most of the time, and we didn't want to have to figure out the ordering system. So we ended up going to the Olive Garden instead, which I guess wasn't as special, but it was still good. I had the four-cheese mezzaluna with sausage (which, like most of the better dishes there, is only available for a limited time), and I enjoyed it, even if Beth didn't. (She didn't order it, but I gave her a bite of mine.)

After dinner, we went to Atlantic City and walked on the Boardwalk, which was cool, but we didn't see any cats. (For those of you who don't know, there are stray cats living under the Boardwalk, especially near the Trump Taj Mahal.) Beth was on the lookout for video roulette machines, but we didn't find any. So we didn't do any gambling, but that's fine with me. And when we got home, we watched Into the Wild Green Yonder, on which I've already commented. So I guess that brings us up to the present, at least as far as anything actually interesting goes. But since I took some personality tests, I'm going to include my results in this post as well.

( First, a quiz result. )

Speaking of which, I came across this article on Iraqi war widows today. Here are a few choice excerpts from it:

Widows and their advocates say that to receive benefits they must either have political connections or agree to temporary marriages with the powerful men who control the distribution of government funds.

When asked why the money should not go directly to the women, Mr. Shihan laughed. "If we give the money to the widows, they will spend it unwisely because they are uneducated and they don't know about budgeting," he said. "But if we find her a husband, there will be a person in charge of her and her children for the rest of their lives. This is according to our tradition and our laws."

I'm all in favor of tolerating other cultures, but it's possible to take that too far, and I'm not down with patriarchal poppycock like that. Of course, it's not just Iraq that has this patronizing attitude toward women. Are women still supposed to walk behind men in Japan? (Equality issues aside, I personally wouldn't want to have to keep looking back to see if she was still there. :P) And even in this oh-so-enlightened nation, women often make less than men while working at the same jobs. While I don't think these attitudes are going to change overnight, I also feel that it doesn't make sense to pretend to champion liberty and democracy when some of your citizens are considered inferior because they lack Y chromosomes.

The "traditional role" of women seems kind of incongruous to me anyway. If women are naturally stupider and lazier, then why do men trust them to prepare food and raise children (whom many people, including Whitney Houston, regard as our future)? I don't think I'd be very good at child-rearing. Then again, I also wouldn't be particularly competent at hunting or gathering, so I suppose I fail both traditional gender roles.

And while on the subject of feminism, I've always thought the suggestion that women have to focus on either family or career is rather demeaning. I obviously think it's a matter of personal choice, but that's not my main point here. Rather, if a woman (or a man, for that matter, but you don't hear it as much about us) doesn't want to dedicate herself to children, she has to dedicate herself to an employer? What's so bad about living for yourself?

I think I might have done this before, but a few people on my friends list just took this quiz, so I figured I might as well follow suit.

My Political Views
I am a left social libertarian
Left: 6.94, Libertarian: 3.63

Political Spectrum Quiz


My Foreign Policy Views
Score: -3.99

Political Spectrum Quiz


My Culture War Stance
Score: -6.99

Political Spectrum Quiz


One problem I've always found with quizzes like this is how many compound questions there are. I mean, "It makes sense and is fair that some people make much more money than others"? What if you think it makes sense, but isn't fair? And the race question was even worse, because it said something about race issues never ending because people identify more with their own race. I'd have to say that people identify more with others they see as part of their own kind, but race is merely one way to define this "kind," and a quite arbitrary one at that. Still, I think my result was pretty accurate.

Okay, first of all, you can check this out:



It's a review by the same guy who does the Angry Video Game Nerd videos. It seems like, even though this movie didn't do well at the theaters, it's quite well-loved by nerds who grew up in the eighties. It IS pretty disturbing in parts, like with that shock treatment storyline that certainly wasn't in any of the books. Even putting the scariness aside, though, why does it copy MGM in taking a lot of time in Kansas before getting to Oz? As far as I can recall, the original books rarely took more than a chapter to get American visitors into a fairyland of some sort. But then, I've seen some adaptations of Alice in Wonderland that did basically the same thing, even though the book has the White Rabbit show up in the second sentence. By the way, getting back to Return, are there any features on the DVD that weren't on the more recent VHS versions?

Second, you've probably heard by now that Bettie Page died. I understand that she became a violent, reclusive fundamentalist in her later years, but how can I help but like a model who bore a striking resemblance to Robin Goldwasser?

( Blow my mind, your royal flyness, I dig your bangs. )

Next, we have a video game survey, which I took from unclemilo:
( Read more... )

I found this meme while browsing my LJ-friends' own friends pages, and thought it sounded fun.

RULES: Go to Google and type in your first name and the given phrase. Copy and paste the first sentence/phrase you get that makes sense.

( My answers )

Well, to start his post, I'll point out that the feud between the Angry Video Game Nerd and the Nostalgia Critic is quite amusing. I'd actually seen one of the Critic's videos before, in which he reviewed that bold anti-drug effort by the first Bush administration, Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue. I've been watching some of his others, and I've enjoyed them so far.

Speaking of nostalgia, a recent post by annamatic about the theme from Alfred Hitchcock Presents (the actual title of which is "Funeral March of a Marionette") reminded me of a game for my old Texas Instruments computer called Shamus, which used that music on its title screen. Has anyone else played this game? It was developed by Atari, so I assume it was available for computers other than the TI. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it, and this review says that it's basically a combination of Adventure and Berzerk. (I've never actually played Berzerk, at least as far as I can remember.) Basically, you had to gather the keys to unlock new passages, while avoiding running into the walls (they were apparently all electrically charged), and shooting enemies. If you stayed in a room too long, a villain called the Shadow would show up to kill you, walking right through the walls to get to you. I understand that this is quite similar to the behavior of Evil Otto in Berzerk, as well as Baron von Blubba in Bubble Bobble. It definitely kept you on your toes while playing; I grew to dread the two notes that always announced the Shadow. There were four levels, each color-coded (and the color was identified on the bottom of the screen, which was useful when playing the game on a black-and-white TV set), but I could only ever reach the second. I remember including some Shamus characters, as well as ones from Word Munchers, in a story I wrote in elementary school.

By the way, did you ever ask yourself, "What if Jack Chick were slightly more up to date?"? Well, it looks like you can get your answer here.

( And here are some memes and quiz results. )

With October here, it's time you learned the truth about Halloween! (The video is in four parts, all of which cut off abruptly for some reason. Maybe the Devil got into her webcam.) It's a time when Druids would sacrifice animals and virgin girls to Samhain, Lord of the Dead, and leave carved pumpkins outside people's houses! Now where have I heard that before? Oh, right. From our old pal Jack, and I don't mean O'Lantern. Come on, "Samhain, God of the Dead"? First of all, it isn't pronounced "Sam Hane." And it's a time of year, not a deity. You might as well say that Christians worship a god named Christmas. And speaking of Christmas, isn't that also based on an ancient pagan festival (several of them, actually)? And while the Bible does say that witches are bad news, doesn't it also have prophets of God performing magic tricks, Saul consulting a medium with no apparent condemnation, and Jacob benefiting from practicing sympathetic magic on Laban's goats? Not to mention that it includes all kinds of animal sacrifice, and even some human sacrifice (see Judges 11). And even if all the Druid-slandering were accurate, how would that make kids dressing up and begging for candy evil? Are we not allowed to do ANYTHING that can somehow be connected to something unpleasant, however tenuously?

Ah, but this woman MUST know what she's talking about, because she used to be a practicing witch, who worshipped Diana! Wait, Diana, the Roman equivalent of Artemis? What does she have to do with witchcraft? Well, actually, I believe she was sometimes considered to be the same as Hecate, who WAS associated with witches. Really, though, it kind of sounds like she just drew the name of a goddess out of a hat. But then, a lot of neo-paganism seems to be a hodge-podge of different belief systems. Not that mainstream religions don't also have elements of other religions thrown in. Besides, most of the self-identified witches I've known were vegetarians, and hardly the sort who would sacrifice animals. I believe that the Church of Satan is also against harming animals, but there's a difference between the Satanism of Anton LaVey and actual devil worship. I don't doubt that some dumbasses make sacrifices to Satan (or some other dark lord) on Halloween. But then, there are also people who bomb abortion clinics in the name of Jesus, or fly planes into buildings in the name of Allah. I don't think any belief system is free of psychopaths, although some have more than others.

And here's a quiz result, which has nothing to do with Halloween:
( Read more... )

Here are two more Captain N episode reviews that I had sitting around in my saved drafts.

( Quest for the Potion of Power )
( The Trouble with Tetris )

And here's a quiz result:

Your Surfing Habits are 60% Male, 40% Female

If we had to guess, we would guess that you are a man. You use the internet to make your life more efficient - and to make you smarter. For you, the internet is like a vast encyclopedia. You search and surf extensively. You look up everything online.

Here's another meme, which zimbra1006 and radiantwterror both did:

Take a picture of yourself right now.
Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair...just take a picture.
Post that picture with NO editing.
Post these instructions with your picture.



Here are a few quiz results:
( Read more... )

And some more Captain N reviews:
( Simon the Ape-Man )
( In Search of the King )

I think I'll make a new mythology post tomorrow.

I finished reading Inkheart a few days ago. I think it was sort of like The Neverending Story in reverse, in that, instead of someone from our world getting sucked into that of a book, it has people from books being called into our world (although there is some of the other as well). They ARE both German books, and The Neverending Story is actually quoted in Inkheart, so I doubt the connection was entirely accidental. I liked the part where it mentioned that Meggie and Mortimer would read anywhere, and sometimes ended up being late for things because of it, because I could identify with it. The distaste for dog-eared pages is another thing I agreed with. I'll admit that I'm not always the most careful book-handler--I'm prone to some accidental smudging, and a lot of my older paperbacks ended up hopelessly crumpled due to spending so much time in my book bag--but I don't INTENTIONALLY damage books, and dog-earing seems to me to be doing just that.

The Inkheart movie is supposed to be coming out next year, and I guess I'll see it, although I have no idea whether it'll be any good. It's been some time since I last went to the movies. I think the only time this year was when bethje and I saw Prince Caspian. I do want to see The Dark Knight, but I don't know when I'll have the chance. And is that animated Clone Wars supposed to be any good?

Anyway, speaking of Batman, here's a quiz result:
( Read more... )

And continuing the theme of movies based on books, here's a survey that I got from bec_87rb:

Copy the list below. Mark in bold the movie titles for which you read the book. Italicize the ones that you've watched. Tag 5 people to perpetuate the meme. Or don't. I didn't.
( Read more... )

Costumed characters are kind of bizarre anyway, considering that they don't talk and all that, but I find it particularly weird how people seem to think kids will want to meet just about any character. I mean, Mickey Mouse I can see, but Great Adventure has Looney Tunes, and Bugs Bunny doesn't strike me as being quite as huggable. Still, that's nothing compared to how Dorney Park has Peanuts characters. I mean, maybe you'd want to hug Charlie Brown to try to get him not to be so mopey, but I'm not sure I can see a kid being all that excited to see those characters, with the possible exception of Snoopy. Anyway, I mention this because bethje and I are planning on going to Astroland before it closes for good, and I noticed that they have a meet-and-greet with the Incredible Hulk. That's just who I want to meet and greet! Some guy who's always getting angry and smashing stuff!

Also, I got the link to this from twobitme:

$111,085 Soul Dollars
Quiz brought to you by money.co.uk

Man, why has the Internet gotten so boring recently? I mean, it's entertaining at times, but only when other people post interesting things. But the Internet is supposed to be something I can use to entertain myself without help from others, isn't it?

Anyway, in my boredom, I've been looking over the entries for individual songs at the They Might Be Giants Wiki, and I've noticed two recurring themes:

1. People can come up with really bizarre interpretations for the simplest songs. I mean, just look at all the argument over "Birdhouse in Your Soul" and "Doctor Worm," each of which I think can be pretty well interpreted in a single sentence.
2. The song ratings are very generous. Ratings are done on a scale of one to ten, yet even the lowest song on there has an average rating of 5.41. I can't really take issue with this sort of rating, though, as I do the same thing. I mean, I probably like the vast majority of what TMBG has turned out, and a song I like should get at least a 5, right? I'm not going to do some bell curve thing and give really low ratings to songs I don't like as much, and I guess other wiki participants feel the same way. I still find it oddly entertaining, however, that the song they did for a Play-Doh commercial has an average rating of 8.

One cool thing I found on there was an unreleased Venue Song. I wonder how many others of those there are. I seem to recall hearing that there was one for Irving Plaza.

And here's the result of a quiz that I got from annarama:

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland   "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The South
Philadelphia
The Northeast
The Inland North
The West
Boston
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

So you can make polls without a paid account, but it won't alert you when someone has voted in it? Oh, LiveJournal, what blindfolded chimp with a dartboard decided what the advantages of your paid accounts would be?

Anyway, I've now finished reading the first volume of Age of Bronze, Eric Shanower's series of comics about the Trojan War. As might be expected from those who know Eric's work, it's excellently drawn and very detailed. I'm not really that familiar with the story of the Trojan War. I know the basics, and I've read summaries of the Iliad, although not the epic poem itself. I guess I've generally been more interested in the really fantastic and bizarre Greek myths, compared to which the Trojan War story is relatively realistic and mundane. Eric made the interesting decision to keep the Greek gods offstage in Age of Bronze, so as to focus on the human aspect. While I can respect that, it's disappointing in a way, because I would have liked to have seen Eric's renditions of the gods. Oh, well. I enjoyed the first volume, and and I guess I should pick up the second one sometime.

I've also recently read March Laumer's In Other Lands Than Oz, which is a somewhat odd compilation of Oz and non-Oz stories. It includes some of Laumer's own short Oz stories, as well as Fred Meyer's "Scraps and the Magic Box." This was originally written with the intention that people would come up with their own endings, and I have to wonder whether anyone came up with something better than Fred's own. For as much as he knew about Oz and all he did to spread knowledge of the series, writing wasn't really his strong point. There's also a Japanese story about a train that travels to Heaven by means of the Milky Way, an increasingly absurd parody of traditional fairy tales by Laumer himself, a competent non-Oz-related fantasy story about a boy helping a griffin to defeat a centaur, and some other stuff. I think I've now read all of Laumer's Oz work, aside from The Green Dolphin of Oz. That one actually seems to be the easiest to find, even though it's really bizarre and has little to do with Oz. The little I've read didn't interest me all that much, although I did appreciate that Laumer found something to do with the short fragment about the lake near the Emerald City (later named Lake Quad by John R. Neill) that has been attributed to L. Frank Baum himself, although it really doesn't seem much like his work.

And here's a quiz result:
( Alas, poor Yorick! )

Also, since I'm not sure when I'll write my next entry, I might as well go ahead and give early birthday wishes to yosef (one of the few fellow Oz fans on my friends list) and colleenanne (who isn't an Oz fan, but I like her anyway).